published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Philosophy

<p>Empowerment is a catchword that has recently entered current development debate. Development is largely perceived as a process of building capacities hence empowering people to be able to handle their affairs. As such it is a concept highly espoused by prominent development actors and mainly Non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The study attempted to examine the theoretical and empirical aspects of community empowerment from a critical perspective by surveying activities of three NGOs in Ethiopia. A recent framework developed by a working group of the World Bank for measuring and structuring analysis was used for analyzing findings. Conceptualization and practices of empowerment seem to be at a nascent stage and tools for measuring it as well / that is what the findings of the study indicate. Despite the rhetoric surrounding the concept, the experience of surveyed NGOs also shows disparities between theory and practice.</p>

<p>This thesis presents a model of the characteristics of an effective nonprofit organisation and a practical tool to evaluate the extent to which nonprofit organisations comply with these characteristics. As part of identifying the characteristics of effective nonprofit organisations, it was necessary to establish whether or not nonprofit organisations and businesses were distinct from one another, since this would determine whether research on the characteristics of effective businesses could be applied to nonprofit organisations. An exploration of the key similarities and defining differences between nonprofit organisations and businesses subsequently revealed a number of startling and unexpected insights.</p>

Traditionally in the West, the pursuit of a secular society has kept a spiritual dimension fiom the study and application of most peacebuilding processes. By excluding a spiritual dimension, however, a tremendous resource for building peace is often lost. This thesis argues that spirituality can assist in encouraging connection and understanding between participants within a peacebuilding process. It also argues that religious/spiritual organizations and their leadership can play an important role in creating the conditions to support peace, through their organizational structure and position in society. Moreover, they can often find ways to prevent and transform conflict through the application of lessons, systems, insights and values from their own traditions, which may be more appropriate to their situation than importing outside solutions. The case study methodology used in this thesis incorporates the experiences that the author had while interning with various NGO's in Burma. The case study itself offers a specific example of why a spiritual framework for peacebuilding is needed. Through this example, an illustration of why this in that current conflict, is achieved. o t h e d e x t s are also discwed. type of framework is suitable, and how it might assist General lessons and insights that are applicable to n

Background: In 1994, the Swedish parliament decided to realize an infrastructural project with PPP. The chosen project, Arlandabaneprojektet, is a four-track railway between Stockholm central station and Arlanda airport. The Swedish government established a PPPcontract with a private consortium which implied that the Swedish government was obligated to finance about one third of the total project cost. The contract also implied that the private consortium got all rights reserved for the operational service. This PPP-project has changed the prerequisites for the Swedish government to meet the transport political objectives. Aim: The aim of this study is to examine how the Swedish government fulfil the transport political objectives in a PPP-project. The purpose of this study is also to examine how the structure of the project contract affect the governmental performance management. Completion: This is a qualitative study. The interview study is based on six interviews. Three interviewees are representing the government’s responsible delegates. The other three interviews were conducted with experts and researchers with extensive knowledge in the project. The interview material is complemented with a document study of reports and investigations. We have also completed a theoretical study of governmental performance management in infrastructural PPP-projects. Furthermore, we have analyzed the empirical study based on the theoretical framework. Conclusions: The government’s possibilities to pursue performance management in line with transport political objectives has been and still is limited. The government has been tied up to a long term contract driven by commercial goals. The main factor behind this is that the government got into the project without having any specific and measureable objectives.

The investigator made a study of the history, philosophy, method, and operation of centralized purchasing as it now exists for the state-supported institutions in the State of Texas and other selected states (New Hampshire, Montana, Michigan, Nebraska, and Minnesota).

Arising from drastically different world views, misconceptions between foreign NGOs working in Mali and local Malians often lead to actions that perpetuate unjust power dynamics and/or do more harm than good. In order to better align NGO sustainable development efforts in ways that are beneficial to the populations they serve, it is crucial to listen to perspectives that are typically marginalized in our current global system. This thesis explores synergizing NGO-Malian artist partnerships in innovative, mutually understandable, and mutually beneficial ways to increase NGO project effectiveness and efficiency. This case study features twelve interviews with Malian dancers and musicians residing in Bamako, Mali. The intersections between this data and current academic sources indicate suggested 1) processes to cultivate understanding and mindfully work to shift unjust power dynamics; and 2) projects (themes, partnerships with existing opportunities, and innovations) that demonstrate promising, new potential to improve development efforts. / 2014-12-16

Campaigning has become an important area of work for development NGOs (NGDOs). How political, in terms of public mobilising to confront authority, has it become? What frameworks can we best use to study this? Based on precedents such as della Porta and Diani's suggestion (2006) that social movement (SM) theory can be enlarged as a theory of collective action, I borrow six SM concepts – frames, repertoires, networks, mobilising structures, identity and political opportunities-threats. I then combine them with NGDO campaigning literature themes to explore those questions in a case study of ActionAid's Tax Justice Campaign (TJC) in Nigeria and the UK. ActionAid's TJC operates through two campaign formats – a single-issue format with one international claim and a multiple-issue format with claims specific to each level. Both formats exist in tension for campaign resources, yet combine to expose international and domestic causes of poverty in low-income countries. This example illustrates ActionAid's campaigning style: walking a tightrope to balance tensions and opportunities in its idea of ‘campaigning'. This style also includes embracing moderate and radical supporter views on poverty and a structure of sponsorship and service-delivery programmes with campaigning accompanying them. For example, financial supporters mobilise towards confronting authorities alongside direct campaigner recruitment. Other NGDOs share this, with other ActionAid campaign features, which together shapes an understanding towards the idea of NGDO political action. I suggest that my findings contribute to both NGDO campaigning and SM theory. To NGDO campaign actors, SM theory provides a new vocabulary to study NGDO campaigning, particularly little explored dimensions in NGDO campaign literature such as state/authority confrontation and political identity. To SM theory, my findings offer an empirical contribution which helps position campaigning NGDOs as another type of contentious actor. At a practice level, ActionAid's multiple-issue campaigning may help prevent local tokenism in international campaigns.

archives@tulane.edu / My dissertation applies diffusion of innovations and post-development theories to an actor-oriented analysis of design thinking uptake at the frontlines of international development. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working directly with the poor face challenges in delivering interventions. Their operating conditions stimulate demand for new approaches like “design thinking,” which is promoted as a human-centered innovation tool to address problems like energy poverty or infant mortality. Through a multi-year case study of a rural Kenyan NGO undergoing training, I explore the interactions and responses of organizational actors as they adopt, reject and remake design thinking. Qualitative methods include in-depth interviews and group discussions with 66 informants, plus document review and participant observation. My findings reveal how uptake is dynamic and socially-embedded. Participants encountered design thinking through workshops, applications and conversations. Training messages, work-life conditions, and institutional locations and relationships informed how intended adopters trialed design thinking. The social interactions and perceived outcomes of encounters fed back into assessment and learning so that over time, partial changes to individuals and the organization emerged along with novel interpretations of design thinking. Staff adopters developed new problem-solving mindsets and adapted design thinking to everyday challenges. They saw it as a tool for enhancing agency and participation rather than a technical innovation process to design solutions for beneficiaries. Others did not perceive design thinking’s compatibility or relative advantage and rejected it. The organization exhibited new language and groupwork practices but not structural and cultural shifts to support design. The contradictory institutional workings of the “developmental configuration,” the assembly of actors, institutions and resources that produce development action, shaped these diverse uptake logics. The configuration simultaneously practices top-down management while demanding bottom-up empowerment. These pressures spurred felt-need for design thinking, constrained adoption, encouraged reinvention and led to internal power struggles. My research has theoretical and practical implications. I add to theories on the diffusion of knowledge innovations in organizational settings and contribute to socio-anthropological understanding of how development actors make sense of design thinking. I challenge assumptions about design thinking for aid effectiveness by offering insights into its actual value and fitness in frontline NGO settings. / 1 / Maille Faughnan

The research reported in this thesis examines the various factors which influence the role of NGOs in development in India. Despite the centrality of NGOs to the development process in the projects examined, little effort has been made to look at existing experience in terms of what works and what does not work in actual practice. This study attempts to analyse the importance and effectiveness of NGOs through the documentation and analysis of the experiences of five NGOs. The five NGOs are: CERTH India and RDI, in the union territory of Pondicherry; ASHA and GRAM, in Krishna and Adilabad districts respectively in the state of Andra Pradesh; and PMDS, in the South Arcot district of the state of Tamil Nadu. These five organisations have spent the five to 15 years organising their respective client communities. The local organisations that have come into existence through their efforts have reached a stage at which village units have federated and are displaying self-management skills to varying degrees. Specific dimensions of the NGOs examined in this study/ include: influencing factors related to their communities and environments; objectives, strategies, structure and functioning, focusing on community participation, vulnerable groups, empowerment, sustainability, the importance of participatory evaluation and participatory research in an NGO; administration and accountability of NGOs; and enabling relations and collaborations which have to be fostered between government and NGOs on the one hand, and global institutions and NGOs on the other. The main approach used in this study was the use of In-depth, openended, informal interviews and discussions based on pre-planned questions, with a range of NGO staff and members of the organisations. Direct contact with some of the beneficiaries, a literature review, and project reports and records also aided the study. The results showed that strategies and techniques used by the NGOs are valuable for attaining self-reliant development. Holistic development is best achieved when the organisation aims at transforming all the important dimensions of people's lives through the process of collective reflection and action on the forces that presently prevent them from developing.